


Send in the Sun

by TheWritersCottage



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, TW: mention of attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27395296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritersCottage/pseuds/TheWritersCottage
Summary: Gentle footsteps rustle across the hill, their sound carried to Aang’s ears on the whisper of the wind. He keeps his eyes closed until he hears the steps stop next to him, and his companion comes to sit quietly at his side.Aang opens his eyes, turning to Zuko with a smile.Zuko doesn’t smile back - and guilt, all-consuming guilt, threatens to suffocate him. Golden eyes flick down to the bandages wrapped around each of his wrists, and he reaches between them, ghosting his fingers against Aang’s arm. His touch is tentative, afraid - but the pads of his fingers are burning.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 128





	Send in the Sun

The warm afternoon breeze caresses Aang’s skin, and he tilts his face to the sun. His eyes are closed as he inhales deeply, listening to the chirping of birds, the gentle whisper of distant rushing water, and the faint echoes of animal calls.

The grass tickles his exposed calves, folded across each other beneath him as he meditates. He hears Appa's peaceful snoring a few yards behind him, a soothing metronome Aang unconsciously syncs his breathing to.

He needed this, more than he knew. The distance, the time away from his duties as the Avatar. Away from the crushing weight of responsibility to his people, the air nomads, and to the world. 

Gentle footsteps rustle across the hill, their sound carried to Aang’s ears on the whisper of the wind. He keeps his eyes closed until he hears the steps stop next to him, and his companion comes to sit quietly at his side.

Aang opens his eyes, turning to Zuko with a smile.

Zuko doesn’t smile back - and guilt, all-consuming guilt, threatens to suffocate him. Golden eyes flick down to the bandages wrapped around each of his wrists, and he reaches between them, ghosting his fingers against Aang’s arm. His touch is tentative, afraid - but the pads of his fingers are burning.

Aang lifts his arms, turning them so his wrists face the cloud dappled sky.

He’s so ashamed he wishes he could melt into the infinite expanse - become part of the heavens. He has to stop his train of thought there, it only leads him into the reality he’s failed to face.

“You haven’t said a word since…” Zuko doesn’t finish, letting Aang fill in the rest.

It was true, he hadn’t. He hadn’t spoken when he’d woken in a spare room at the palace, Zuko at his side. His bandages were stained then, freshly tended to by the Fire Lord’s healers.

He’d barely said a word when Zuko put aside all his duties to bring him to the Southern Air Temple, insisting on a return to his roots.

They’d been at the temple for a few days, and words still failed him.

He sighs, emptying his lungs before taking another breath.

“I’m sorry.” 

The words feel as though they’re fished out of him with an invisible line and hook. They come from deep inside, an admission, a quiet prayer.

“Aang, I don’t-” Zuko stops, heaving a sigh of his own as he holds his hands out before him, a helpless gesture. “Why didn’t you come to me? Or anyone?”

The question settles between them. 

_Because I’m the Avatar._ Was all the reply his mind could provide. The Avatar, the great bridge between worlds, the most powerful bender in the four nations. The hero of the people - a star that burned brightly, a beacon for the hopeless. A star didn’t _yearn,_ didn’t feel weak as it burned. It just _did._

_And then it goes out._

But Aang had almost put himself out.

His mouth is dry, his voice foreign to him after prolonged disuse.

“How could I?” 

The question feels hot on his tongue, weighed down with self-loathing. 

How could he? How could the Avatar ever ask for anyone to bear his load?

Zuko fixes him with a sharp look.

“By trusting that the ones you love will listen.” His tone is a kaleidoscope of emotion. “By talking to us.”

He’s silent.

“Talking to me.”

Aang can hear the hurt there. He reaches a hand out, resting it on Zuko’s shoulder to comfort him. Zuko catches his hand, his molten gold eyes burning into him.

“This is the problem,” he says.

Aang looks at him, not understanding.

“You reach out to comfort others when you should be reaching out to be comforted.”

He feels so far away, yet so present all at once. A juxtaposition of here and there, of now and yet to come.

“I know,” he says, finally. “It’s hard, it’s harder now.”

Zuko releases his hand, his shoulders relaxing.

“You’ve lost a great deal,” he says gently. 

Aang lifts his eyes, the hollowness of the grey within like the dregs of a drying pond.

“We all have. We all do.”

There’s some comfort in that knowledge, at least. 

“But maybe you more than most,” Zuko offers.

Small white butterflies sail by, carried on the waves of the breeze, alighting weightlessly on blades of grass in a dance.

“Maybe it’s time I was honest,” he says, his eyes welling, his chest clenching.

He feels Zuko shift closer so their shoulders are pressed together.

“I’m here. Talk to me.”

There’s so much inside him, where does he even start?

“Sometimes I forget that I’m not just the Avatar,” he says quietly. “I forget that I’m also human. I make mistakes, I hurt, I need help.”

The last three words ring in his ears.

“But being the Avatar-” he struggles around the lump in his throat as tears flow down his face. “has taken so much from me.”

He lets his face fall into his hands, the truth ripping him open so his tears are like blood - _like blood_.

He sobs quietly into his hands, his shoulders shaking as he does. It’s the first time he’s cried in months. He barely registers the arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.

Being the Avatar had cost him the lives of his people, of Gyatso. It had cost him his youth, his life. He hated himself for thinking it, but his destiny was one he wished weren't his.

“There is so much I miss,” he rasps, “and there is so much I still need to do.”

There would _always_ be more. More disaster, more lives lost to senseless violence, but the Avatar was just one man. There was only so much he could do, so many hurts he could heal, no matter how many sleepless weeks he spent trying.

Aang wipes his face with the back of his arm, wincing at the dull pain in his wrist as his muscles flex with the effort.

“Sometimes the future feels like it stretches out forever before me, an unknown landscape of untold struggle, failure, difficulty and loss,” he forces himself to meet Zuko’s eyes. “I know there’s good, but...”

He shakes his head.

“I’m getting older, and I feel like I have no time, and that I have an eternity all at once.”

“You’re barely out of your twenties.” Zuko reminds him.

Aang laughs weakly.

“When you put it that way.”

Zuko pulls his arm away, moving so he and Aang are sitting face to face. Carefully, he takes Aang’s bandaged wrists in his hands, scrutinizing them.

“I’ve thought about this before,” he says quietly.

He had, more than once. He’d thought about it after he was banished. He’d thought about it while on the throne. He’d thought about it on countless lonely nights when he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He looks up into grey pools.

“But you didn’t,” Aang says, bitterness heavy in his voice as he tries to pull his wrists back. But Zuko holds him there.

“I wasn’t stronger, Aang,” he says pointedly. “I was just lucky. As Fire Lord, I’m rarely alone. Guards, the Fire Sages, politicians and world leaders are my constant companions.”

He pauses.

“And you.”

Aang’s eyes widen.

“You’ve been my peace of mind in the darkest times…” 

“Zuko.”

“I want- I can be that for you, if you let me.”

It’s a confession. Old, unsaid, until now.

Zuko’s heart begins to race, the weight of his words crashing over him, the weight of the silence between them - agony.

Aang’s expression is unsure, expectant.

He doesn’t think. He leans forward, the grass tickling his ankles as he does. The scent of summer envelopes him as he closes the distance between them, warm breath and lips. Aang’s lips pressed to his own, unmoving, parted in surprise.

He pulls back, his expression raw.

“I know I can’t fix everything that’s hurting you,” he whispers. “But I can be here for you, always.”

Everything Aang knows about Zuko shuffles itself into new meaning. Lingering looks and touches, unexpectedly thoughtful gifts, charged conversations with hidden meaning.

“How long?” Aang manages.

Zuko’s shoulders sag. “Years, Aang. Even before you and Katara ended things.”

The recontextualization of all their shared memories hits him all at once.

“All this time…” He never spared the possibility a single thought. 

“I never planned to tell you, and maybe my timing now is worse.” His smile is mirthless. “I don’t want to take from you. I just want you to know you can take from me.”

A dim flame comes to life in Aang’s heart, small but warm, a heartbeat beside his own. He lets his shoulders relax.

“May I lay in your lap?” His eyes are warm as he asks. He realizes he wants this more than anything he's wanted in years. To be held, to be watched over, cared for.

Zuko’s smile is bright, a light blush dusting his cheeks as he gestures for Aang to make himself comfortable. 

Aang shifts his weight, stretching out his legs and laying back, slowly lowering his head until it rests on Zuko's thigh. 

“It’s a shame I don’t have hair you could play with.” He feels some of his old self coming back as he jokes. 

Zuko reaches for a stock of tickle grass, stretching to take it between his thumb and forefinger as he plucks it. He brings it down to Aang’s cheek, and his skin tingles at the touch.

“I’m sorry,” Aang says again. “I lost myself to despair, and I should know better than anyone to reach out.”

The grass stock grazes the skin of his neck down to his exposed shoulder, tickling his collarbone.

“Just remember that to me you’ll always be Aang.”

Long fingers come to rest along his jaw as Aang touches him.

“You’ll always be Zuko to me.”

Aang rests his weight on his elbows and moves his hand to cup Zuko’s face, pulling him down. He stops just before their lips meet, hovering maddeningly close.

“What are you doing?” Zuko breathes.

Grey and gold melt together like the sun sent in after the rain.

“Looking at you. _Really_ looking,” Aang says, studying the planes of the face above his. “I can’t believe I never appreciated how beautiful you are before now.”

Zuko’s eyes widen. _Beautiful._ What a strange adjective to be associated with.

And then Aang’s lips are moving against his, curious and exploring. He moves with him, his eyes sliding closed as he sighs, feeling like a dusty hearth has been lit in his chest. It crackles merrily behind his eyes as Aang kisses him, slow, passionate and honest. 

Zuko’s lips are like new air, and Aang breathes him in, inhaling as he parts his lips, inviting Zuko inside. Warmth blooms in his stomach at the taste of him in his mouth - sweet and hot. And it’s like his heart is pumping new blood - rich and full of life. He feels, for the first time in a very long time, that he has hope. 

It’s small, this moment, but somehow it’s everything. He’s made his decision - Zuko’s heart is one he wants to hold. What’s more, he’s ready to give his in exchange.

They break apart, and Aang kisses the tip of Zuko’s nose before he straightens. 

A wave of peace blankets Aang, settling into his marrow. He feels the tension of the years melt away, if only for now, and he lays his head down once more as exhaustion seizes him.

“Can I lay here a while?” he mutters, sleep already muddying his thoughts.

He feels Zuko rest a hand over his on his chest.

“As long as you need.”

The breeze dances over their entwined hands, a secret blessing as it curls the weeds towards them. The sun shines down, smiling on them warmly, a reminder of lifetimes gone by, and lifetimes to come. But for now, it’s Aang and Zuko’s lifetime it shines down upon, lighting the way to their shared future.

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of us are going through some really hard times right now, but I hope this story can bring a little light to dark days. Romantic love isn't the key to happiness, but connection and companionship are. We need to be here for each other, for the ones we love. Reach out to your network, tell people you love them, let them tell you they love you back. We're all weathering this storm together.


End file.
